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The following selections are intended as an early introduction to the MLC and to the centrality of issue
related to constructions of ethnicity and identity.
The construct of Australia by Ania Walwicz angrily confronts traditional stereotypes.

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You big ugly. You too empty. You desert with your nothing nothing nothing. You scorched suntanned.
Old too quickly. Acres of suburbs watching the telly. You bore me. Freckle silly children. You nothing
much. With your big sea. Beach beach beach. I͛ve seen enough already. You dumb dirty city with bar
stools. You͛re ugly. You silly shoppingtown. You copy. You too far everywhere. You laugh at me. When I
came this woman gave me a box of biscuits. You try to be friendly but you͛re not very friendly. You
never ask me to your house. You insult me. You don͛t know how to be with me. Road road tree tree. I
came from crowded and many. I came from rich. You have nothing to offer. You͛re poor and spread thin
.You big. So what. I͛m small. It͛s what͛s in. you silent on Sunday. Nobody on your streets. You dead at
night. You go to sleep too early. You don͛t excite me. You scare me with your hopeless. Asleep when you
walk. Too hot to think. You big awful. You don͛t match me. You burnt out. You too big sky. You make me
a dot in the nowhere. You laugh with your big healthy. You want everyone to be the same. You͛re dumb.
You do like anybody else. You engaged Doreen. You big cow. You average average. Cold day at school
playing around at lunchtime. Running around for nothing. You never accept me. For your own. You
always ask me where I͛m from. You always ask me. You tell me I look strange. Different. You don͛t adopt
me. You laugh at the way I speak. You think you͛re better than me. You don͛t like me. You don͛t have an
interest in another country. Idiot centre of your own self. You think the rest of the world walks around
without shoes or electric light. You don͛t go anywhere. You stay at home. You like one another. You go
crazy on Saturday night. You get drunk. You don͛t like me and you don͛t like women. You put your arm
around men in bars. You͛re rough. I can͛t speak to you. You burly burly. You͛re just silly to me. You big
man. Poor with all your money. You ugly furniture. You ugly house. Relaxed in your summer stupor. All
year. Never fully awake. Dull at school. Wait for other people to tell you what to do. Follow the leader.
Can͛t image. Work horse. Thick legs. You go to work in the morning. You shiver on a tram.

Ania Walwicz ͚Australia͛, in Damien White & Anna Couani (eds), Island in the Sun 2: Anthology of Recent
Australia Prose, Sea Cruise Books, Glebe, NSW, 1981, pp. 90-1.